SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE

While the trading world was focused on the latest news involving Deutsche Bank, namely that the troubled German bank had been contemplating a merger with Germany’s other mega-bank, Commerzbank as part of a strategy to sell all or part of a key business to speed up its flagging overhaul, a more troubling report emerged in a German gold analysis website, according to which Deutsche Bank was unable to satisfy a gold delivery request when asked to do so by a client of Germany’s Xetra-Gold

service.

But first, what is Xetra-Gold?

According to its website, the publicly traded company “provides investors with an efficient instrument to participate in the performance of the gold market. Xetra-Gold’s combination of features – cost-efficient trading and the right for physical delivery of gold – makes it an attractive product.”

Among its highlights, Xetra-Gold lists the following:

Cost-efficient trading: No mark-up fee, no transportation or insurance costs such as those incurred when purchasing physical gold. Only the standard transaction fees that are charged for on-exchange securities trading are payable at the time of acquisition. The spreads that apply to purchase and sale correspond to the standard conditions on the global market and are considerably lower than those for traditional gold-based financial products. Furthermore, management or administration fees relating to Xetra-Gold are not incurred. The investor pays the amount of custody fees which he/she has agreed upon with the depository bank.

Physically backed: The issuer uses the proceeds from the issue of Xetra-Gold to purchase gold. The physical gold is held in custody for the issuer in the Frankfurt vaults of Clearstream Banking AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse AG. In order to facilitate the delivery of physical gold, the issuer holds a further limited amount of gold on an unallocated weight account with Umicore AG & Co. KG.

Transparent:  Xetra-Gold tracks the price of gold on a virtually 1:1 basis, and is always up to date.

Tradeable in euros per gram: While in the past, gold was mainly denominated in US dollars per troy ounce, you trade Xetra-Gold in euros per gram.

Stable/Constant holdings: The investor’s right to receive delivery of the certificated amount of gold is not reduced by management costs or other fees, unlike other investments in gold. 1,000 units of Xetra-Gold will still represent a kilogram of gold in 30 years’ time.